Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Who was Shakespeare?
Position‹2 of 5›: The Post-Stratfordian position
Argument‹8 of 10›: Where is the documentation?

Unlike his contemporaries, there is no historical documentation to suggest Shakespeare made a living from writing plays.

The argument

There is almost no indication in historical documents that Shakespeare ever earned an income from writing, despite his life being exceptionally well documented compared to most in Elizabethan England. We know he was an actor, had a stake in a theatre company, was a moneylender, a property investor, a tax dodger and had a restraining order imposed upon him. But nowhere do we have historical documentation pointing to an income earned from writing.

Context

Other writers at the time left documented evidence that they earned their living from writing. Even in cases where the writing itself has not survived, there are letters and payment records that showed they earned an income from writing.

Premises

[P1]Despite Shakespeare's life being exceptionally well documented for Elizabethan England, there is almost no record of him ever earning an income from writing. [P2] Documents show him as an actor, theatre-company shareholder, moneylender, property investor, and tax dodger, yet none point to earnings from authorship. [C] The absence of documentation for a writing income supports the Post-Stratfordian doubt that Shakespeare was the author.

Counter-arguments

The fact that there is more documentation about William Shakespeare than any other figure in Elizabethan theatre shows that he had the fame and public prestige we would expect from someone who wrote the plays. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because there is no surviving documentation to show that he made his livelihood from writing does not mean that he didn't. It is possible there are just no surviving documents. There is extensive evidence which places him in the theatre world. He was in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a troupe which would go on to become the King’s Men. But, perhaps most convincingly, his name is on the plays. Why would there need to be any further documentation beyond that?

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.